"The truth? Does she want the truth? Very well, I will tell it too. We shall bring to light our home life."
Philippe was amazed at this sudden anger:
"With what have you to reproach her?"
"I? Nothing and everything. Does one encounter in life only serious events, capable of exact limitation and definition? The greatest misfortunes are not the hardest to bear. Listen, in my loneliness—I am speaking of my home,—I have noted down from day to day my impressions of those last years. It happens that I have brought those books with me. Here they are; I shall leave them with you. You will find some causes there. I shall complete them. You will tell everything to the Court, since she wishes the truth. And I am going to contend for our children."
"I have just seen them," said the lawyer, as he took the books. "They are quite well."
With a decided movement, Albert stopped his friend as if to tell him that this subject belonged only to him:
"I know."
Philippe Lagier, who was going to plead their cause, realized the inefficacy of any interference. The restless forehead, the hard look in the eyes, the distressed and absorbed expression of the face, showed traces of that passion about which Albert was silent. And this refusal to speak of it implied a rare force of concentration on the same object. Every confidence is a diminution: it abstracts a spark of that divine fire with which the soul wishes to be filled. Anne de Sézery invisible, was there, in that room, present and dominant.
"It is definite? You will not be reconciled with Elizabeth?"
"Never!"